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Vector

Misc

This ferocious night predator is also a cute character that is the subject of this drawing lesson. The owl cartoon is not a difficult animal to draw, but creating all shadows and reflections perfectly can be quite challenging.

Please remember that owning a vector software could be great if you want to complete this tutorial more efficiently. Many software can be purchased for less than $100 USD and are quite good if you want to create something nice and interesting. In fact, this drawing lesson was made with one of these software!

Important note: For each step available below, the first image represents the operation you must perform for this particular step. All changes are surrounded by a red outline.

On the second image, you will have the opportunity to see the result of this particular step.

Step 1

Let's start drawing! First, create the outlines of the cartoon animal. Make sure that everything is clean and accurate. Make sure that all details on wings are well-reproduced. Then, apply plain colors to the owl's body.

Step 2

Next, use the gradient tool to give more depth to your character. On the stomach, the top of the round shape can be hidden a little bit using transparency.

Step 3

It's now time to add some nice effects on the eyes. Create large patches and place them behind the eyes. You can add a little bit of transparency on top of these shapes. Then, create white circles and add these shapes on the eyes and the pupils.

Step 4

Create small shapes on each side of the head of the owl cartoon. Add transparency on the bottom of these new shapes. For the legs, create small shapes on each part to create dark shadows.

Step 5

For each wing, you can add two triangles to illustrate feathers. You can also create a white shadow on the beak and a dark one on the stomach of your cartoon animal.

Step 6

Finally, add more shadows below the beak, on the inside part of each wing, on the body and near the top of the head to complete your owl cartoon. As you can see, the character is now well-colored and shadows are adding depth to something that was previously made of simple basic shapes. Enjoy! :)